Two different things. Both bad, no doubt. The "printed out of thin air" devalues the currency and drives inflation. Interestingly, just the ability (even before it's done) is enough to devalue currency when government debt is exploding because to currency traders and credit sources, they see the "print more money" as inevitable. So this is very, very bad. But central bank digital currency is another kind of bad. Sure it has all the downsides of printing currency that isn't backed by any tangible asset. So you're spot on there. But it carries all kinds of additional badness. The digital currency is easier to control after it's issued. See the meme - it's not much of a stretch. Confiscation of your money is even easier. Is it really that much more dangerous than the status quo? Once upon a time, when most folks relied mostly on cash, it was hard to just take it after it was printed. Today most people rely on electronic money or credit. You can't use cash on Amazon and increasingly in some PC places you can't even use cash for retail. We've gone from cards to "tap" and automatic transfers are the standard for paying bills. But with many different banks to choose from, there is at least the illusion of choice and pressure upon banks to appear to respect privacy. But is this reality? Well, it still takes convincing a federal judge for LE to get at your transaction records legally. Or a semi-competent 9th grader to get at it illegally. And convincing a federal judge isn't really hard, folks, so long as you can find one that supports the "goals" (aka politics). It takes not much more effort for a federal agency to seize your bank accounts. Three easy steps: 1. accuse you of a tax crime. This allows the IRS to freeze all your accounts; 2. people with no funds generally put up incompetent defenses 3. declare all assets "ill-gotten gains" and take it all Step (3) gets all tangible assets too. Federal regulators have tremendous power over banks. So while it may appear you have a choice, truth may be you don't. But collapsing all banks into a single, centrally controlled bank will "streamline" the process of controlling all transactions. It may be only incremental change, but it does look to be irreversible.